Surranna Sandy
CivicAction began because David Pecaut showed up. David Pecaut was a senior partner at the Boston Consulting Group who gave his civic work entirely pro bono. In 2002, he founded the Toronto City Summit Alliance, which became CivicAction. Over the next seven years, he helped build civic infrastructure across the region, from immigrant employment initiatives to emerging leader networks to cultural city-building efforts.
More than 6,000 people volunteered their expertise alongside him. When he died in December 2009, he left behind a letter describing that work as one of the greatest highlights of his life. What he demonstrated is the argument at the centre of this piece: the most powerful force in city building is not any single institution or investment. It is people, people who choose to bring their skills and time to problems larger than themselves.
“The most amazing thing that struck me at every turn was how many people from all walks of life in this city were passionately concerned with making it a great city.” – David Pecaut, 2009
Volunteerism is How Cities Actually Change
We tend to think of volunteering in narrow terms: serving meals, staffing events, sitting on boards. But in its fullest expression, volunteerism is how civic change actually happens. It is how leaders develop judgment by working on real problems beyond their own sector. It is how organizations without government funding get the expertise they need. It is how everyday people connect to and strengthen the social fabric and vibrancy of their communities. It is how a region builds the trust and relationships that make collective action possible.
The numbers make the stakes concrete. Statistics Canada shows Canadians contributed approximately 1.2 billion hours of formal volunteer time in 2023, equivalent to hundreds of thousands of full-time positions. Yet the share of Canadians volunteering formally dropped from 41 percent in 2018 to 32 percent in 2023, and total hours fell by more than a quarter. More than half of Canadian charities now report they cannot meet current demand. When that infrastructure weakens, communities do not just lose programs. They lose the capacity to act together.
The Next Generation of City Builders
This National Volunteer Week, we recognize the first cohort of Youth CivicCorps volunteers. They are the heart of what this week is about. Youth CivicCorps, funded in part by Canada Service Corps, connects young people aged 18 to 30 with meaningful placements in organizations working on housing, affordability, equity, and social justice. These are real roles, not symbolic gestures, with mentorship and practical support designed to remove the barriers that have historically kept talented young people out of civic life.
One group of volunteers organized a Policy Café for the Asian Policy Professionals Network, moderating a panel of senior leaders who offered deep insight into the housing crisis and how they’ve advanced their careers. Another group produced a research paper for the Federation of Canadian Secondary Students on the availability and access to housing for first year and emancipated post-secondary students. Each is doing what this region has always needed: showing up and choosing to be part of something larger.
If we want the next generation of city builders, we have to invest in them before disengagement takes hold. Youth CivicCorps is that investment in future civic-minded leaders.
What CivicAction Has Built
CivicAction has spent more than two decades building the civic capacity this region needs. DiverseCity Fellows develops mid-career leaders from equity-deserving communities and places them where decisions get made. The Emerging Leaders Network has connected more than 3,000 rising leaders across every sector, building the relationships that city building depends on. Youth CivicCorps extends that work earlier, because leadership pipelines matter, and the time to invest in civic leaders is before they disengage.
The Challenge Still Stands
Near the end of his letter, David Pecaut wrote: “We can be a city where collective leadership is the norm. A city where civic entrepreneurs are everywhere and the process of bringing all the parts of civil society together to solve a problem is really how the city defines its uniqueness.”
More than fifteen years later, that challenge still stands. The problems are real and deepening. Great cities are not built by institutions. They are built by the people who show up. This week, we celebrate the ones who do, and we invite you to become one of them. Volunteer. Support the organizations doing this work. Help build the city David Pecaut believed was possible.